Ask Slashdot: What Magazines Do You Still Read? 363
AmiMoJo writes "Over on Slashdot Japan, there is a discussion about what magazines people still read (Google translation of Japanese original). Japanese people still tend to read a lot of periodicals, while in the west readership seems to be in decline. Do you read magazines regularly, or at all? Are websites a good substitute, or do print publications still offer something worth spending your cash on?"
Re:WIRED (Score:2, Informative)
Wired used to be a great magazine until they switched their format a couple years back. Dropped it since it seemed to be full of Advertisements only, instead of true tech articles. It just sucks now, and no longer has any content that's worth paying for. (Electronic or Print version)
Re:None (Score:5, Informative)
By completely changing your content type?
The website Cracked is pretty much nothing like the long-running magazine Cracked.
Cracked was a fairly successful ripoff of MAD. The problem, and it's the same one MAD faces, is that you can't really parody pop culture any more because it's become self-parodying. MAD stays in business, but just barely. There doesn't seem to be room for more than one mag in that segment now, though.
Re:None (Score:4, Informative)
I am happy to pay for these publications because they are well written, well edited, and have content that is not easily available elsewhere.
Sure, except that they're all available online or in a digital format (e.g. eBook).
The Economist's [economist.com]
National Geographic [nationalgeographic.com]
Harper's [harpers.org]
Paris Review [theparisreview.org]
The New York Review of Books [nybooks.com]
Granta [granta.com]
Foreign Affairs [foreignaffairs.com]
Granta and The Paris Review appear to only have digital versions available, but the rest provide logins and a means to access the full content of each article online, from what I can gather. And, honestly, if you're interested in supporting these magazines, shouldn't you be reading them on a screen anyway, since the printing and distribution account for some of their largest costs?
I do believe something is lost in the experience when we switch to screens from paper, but I also believe that it is largely outweighed by the convenience of easier access, the availability of more content at any given moment, and the lower costs for content creators. And for someone like you, who seems to believe that content is king, I'm surprised you wouldn't agree.